Will Ferrell on boring people
Monday, November 24, 2025
Immature is a word the boring people use to describe fun people.
Will Ferrell
Misc
Ted Nelson on the future
Friday, November 21, 2025
I have seen the future– and it irks.
Ted Nelson, 1996
I miss fun Twitter
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
An absolute classic. Makes me laugh every time. People are funny.
Now Playing: David Byrne, Who Is the Sky?
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
He keeps going and going. Fun, interesting song writing here.
No rules here
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
I have a rule book for blogging, honest, even though I seldom refer to it. I've decided to throw it away when it comes to this blog. All bets are off, people!
I'm not sure I want to maintain a complex Emacs config
Sunday, November 16, 2025
I love my (sort of) home grown Emacs config, but maintaining it can be exhausting.
Yesterday, I complained about it a little in A blog post written with NeoVim. There's so much going on. I've spent years making tweaks both small and large. This should be a good thing, but I'm not feeling great about it. It feels fragile. It is fragile.
So, what to do about it? Anything? One option might be to switch back to something like Doom Emacs. Doom is great, but I always end up spending nearly as much time tweaking packages as I do on my own config.
Another option would be to migrate away from using Emacs for everything.
::gasp!::
I've threatened to leave Emacs before. Many times. I've even followed through once or twice. The problem is that inertia (or is it momentum?) takes over. I have a decade of notes and workflows built on and around Org mode, all via Emacs. What happens to all that? Do I really want to replace all those parts with new ones? If I'm going to commit to switching to Linux (still not a certainty), the replacements are all different.
You can tell I'm in a mood because I'm posting this with WordPress. That's never a good sign.
Anyway, I'm still noodling on all of it. Thanks for listening.
When design drives behavior
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
Jason Fried:
But the most interesting designs to me are when design changes your behavior. Even the smallest details can change how someone interacts with something.
Jason Fried, When design drives behavior
Clever, but I might prefer when the UI doesn't lie to me.
I haven't deleted this yet for some reason
Saturday, October 18, 2025
Whenever I stop by here and look at the blog I think, "Well that's kind of nice, actually." Then I consider moving my blogging here (again). But also, I know me and it never sticks. And yet, it's still here.
Westenberg: Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice
Wednesday, October 8, 2025
The appeal of cynicism is that it makes you sound smart without asking for a whole lot of independent thought. It's easier to tear down than build up, to assume the worst than to evaluate evidence, to sneer than to engage, to smirk rather than smile.
Source: Joan Westenberg, Why Cynicism is Just Moral Cowardice
We could use less of it.
Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace - Ted Gioia
Sunday, October 5, 2025
That’s not entirely fair. Wallace’s most famous book, Infinite Jest—1,079 pages and weighing 3.15 pounds (in the hardcover first edition)—is challenging. But Wallace wrote many other things, and some of them are quite accessible.
Source: Ted Gioia, Where to Start in Reading David Foster Wallace
I hope that reading and talking about DFW makes a comeback. For a while there, Book Social Media was (rightfully) aligned against sound-smart lit-bros who wouldn't shut up about Infinite Jest. I may have been one of them, because I loved (and still love) that book, so shut up.
But definitely read This is Water, even if it's cliche by now. and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again is a ton of fun. Oh, and his piece about Federer is amazing, even if some of it might be exaggerated. Who cares?
Jeremy Mann on waiting for change
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
We cannot just sit and wait and hope that something will change in a way we wish it to.
Jeremy Mann, "Red Rabbit 7"
That explains the reading on my scale this morning, I guess.
Make a new decision later (quote)
Monday, September 29, 2025
The strength of making a decision is making it. You can always make a new one later.
Source: Optimizing for Taste
Watches
Saturday, September 27, 2025
I used to want the fanciest watches I could manage to afford. I have a nice Tag automatic and it's a fine watch.
What I didn't expect is that these days I love the fact that my everyday and my "dress" watches cost a total of around $50.
Also, as the saying goes, "A person with one watch knows what time it is. A person with two watches is never sure."
P&B: Jack Baty
Friday, September 12, 2025
Each week Manuel Moreale features a different blogger as part of his "People and Blogs" series. It's usually very interesting, but today's entry is all about me, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
If you're interested: https://manuelmoreale.com/pb-jack-baty
This post was written in a notebook - joelchrono
Thursday, September 11, 2025
A little experiment where I write a post with pen and paper, but I transcribed it as well, just for fun
Source: This post was written in a notebook
I still write on paper almost every day, but I haven't been enjoying it as much recently. I'm not sure why. Joel's giving it a spin. It's always fun to watch others working on paper. It helps me stick with it.
Hey Joel, you should definitely try a fountain pen. Get something inexpensive to start with, like a Lamy Safari or Pilot Metropolitan. You know, ease into it before it takes over your bank account.
Vonnegut on build vs maintain
Wednesday, September 10, 2025
"Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance.”
Kurt Vonnegut
Something with an image
Saturday, September 6, 2025
Can this work for image posts?
